COMMENCEMENT 1973

If you think midtown Manhattan is a crowded, busy place, you should have been in Hanover last month for Commencement. The dilemma was not the unscathed negotiation of Main and Wheelock, but rather how to seat the nearly 8000 parents, relatives and friends in the 7200 wooden chairs set up on the expansive front lawn of Baker Library for the June 10 graduation ceremonies. Obviously some people, about 500, had to either stand or sit on the ground.

Not since the first Baker lawn Commencement in 1953, when thousands witnessed the conferral of an honorary degree on President Dwight D. Eisenhower, have so many turned out for a Dartmouth graduation.

For the fourth consecutive year there was perfect weather for a strikingly solemn yet beautiful ceremony. With the exception of hair, dress, and car styles - and a few buzz words like "Watergate" - one would have thought he or she was attending a graduation straight from the 1950s.

As last year's Commencement marked the end of an era for Dartmouth, when the last all-male class was graduated, so this year's Commencement marked the beginning of a new chapter in the life and history of the 204-year-old institution.

The newness came about as the result of many "firsts," something Dartmouth has always been famous for.

The first coeducational class in Dartmouth's history was graduated. Among the 1145 persons receiving A.B. or graduate degrees, 846 were seniors including 37 women, the first of their sex to receive the Dartmouth bachelor's degree. Nineteen of the graduating women were among the 178 seniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Mary Lynn Allen of St. Louis, Mo., who transferred from Smith College two years ago, was the first woman to receive the A.B. diploma when seniors marched to the dais. As she was handed her degree by Dean of the College Carroll Brewster a wave of applause rippled through the audience in recognition that symbolically Miss Allen's award was a significant event in the life of the College.

“It's going to be hard to leave," Miss Allen said later. “Dartmouth is my school and I've really enjoyed being here. The last two years of my life – the years I've been at Dartmouth – have been fuller and happier than I could have imagined."

Among the other "firsts" were the first M.D. degrees (18) to be awarded by Dartmouth Medical School in 59 years, the first Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) degrees (36) to be conferred, and the first undergraduate husband and wife teams to receive A.B. degrees from the college.

Other degrees awarded were the Master of Business Administration (129), Master of Arts (19), Master of Science (8), Doctor of Philosophy (19), Bachelor of Engineering (25), Master of Engineering (7), Master of Science in Engineering (8), Doctor of Engineering (2), Civil Engineer (1), and Bachelor of Medical Science (27).

In recent moves to keep Commencement essentially a family affair, Dartmouth awarded only six honorary degrees, two of which went to members of the Hanover community.

Honored were retired Trustee Charles J. Zimmerman ’23, of Hartford, Conn., Doctor of Laws; Joseph Losey '29, London film-maker, Doctor of Humane Letters; Arthur M. Wilson, professor-emeritus of biography and of government at Dartmouth, Doctor of Letters; the Rt. Rev. William L. Nolan, Roman Catholic chaplain to Dartmouth students for nearly 25 years, Doctor of Divinity; Dr. Dwight L. Wilbur of San Francisco, former president of the American Medical Association, Doctor of Science; and Shirley MacLaine, the actress, Doctor of Humane Letters.

Douglas A. Jabs of Wayland, Mass., the senior selected to give the class valedictory, urged members of the Class of 1973 not to betray the "social conscience" they had acquired while at Dartmouth.

Noting that his Class had experienced an increasing maturity and willingness to work within the system, Jabs cautioned against a retreat to cynicism because of the Watergate affair or other problems facing the nation and the world.

"There are many problems facing the United States. There will always be problems. Their solution requires both our awareness and our involvement," he declared. "We must sustain and nurture the concern we have demonstrated while we were students. If we do, something will be done."

President Kemeny, in a brief valedictory to the Class, said that if there was one thing he hoped each graduate would carry away from Dartmouth, it would be a respect for truth. Because the truth is harsh, he said, it is often easier to create deceptions, the worst of which are stereotyped attitudes about race, religion, and sex.

To the women in this first coeducational class President Kemeny addressed an appeal to be honest when discussing Dartmouth with potential women students, to tell then both the good and the bad. He further asked these pioneer alumnae to work with Dartmouth clubs throughout the land to prepare them for the coming of hundreds and even- tually thousands of women graduates.

Just as President Kemeny had turned his sights on the future, President-emeritus John Sloan Dickey remembered the past during an emotion-filled Class Day ceremony in the Bema two days before Commencement.

"Whatever else you take away from here," Mr. Dickey said, "you'll take away a person - yourself — touched by and a part of this place."

He described the "place" as a composite of two centuries of "idealism and purpose, adventure and adversity." Mr. Dickey, his voice betraying how much his 24 years as president had meant to him, concluded: "And now. to the last class that I was privileged to welcome to this place thank you for today, thank you for the privilege of knowing each other here and a very, very personal so long." As the standing ovation faded, the Class of 1973 spontaneous- ly filled the Bema with a chorus of "Men of Dartmouth."

The Class Day audience also gave a warm reception to the Address to the Class by Samuel L. Livermore '73. What is it that draws graduates back to the College?, he asked. "Dartmouth is a great place to be for four years of one's life," he said. "It is, and I hope it will always continue to be the realm of the undergraduate. Not only is Dartmouth possibly the country's finest country club, but also I would firmly assert that it is one of the country's finest educational institutions. ... However, I don't think that graduates return for any of these things in particular. There is something more to Dartmouth - an atmosphere, or whatever, that is hard to find anywhere. At the center of this atmosphere, I believe, is Dartmouth's commitment to the undergraduate. I would venture to say that if this is lost, the flow of graduates back to this campus both bodily and financially will slow down to a trickle."

On Saturday morning, June 9, the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program formally ended a 31-year affiliation with the College. Nine seniors received their commissions as Ensigns in the U.S. Navy.

Prof. James F. Hornig, director of graduate studies and associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, commended the new officers for their commitment to purpose in the face of adversity. "The true quality and character of NROTC was never tested or challenged more intensely than during the 1969 protests and subsequent phaseout," he said. "Our community learned the meaning of dignity as demonstrated by ROTC students."

A taste of Dartmouth scholarship at its best was provided for parents and guests Saturday morning when Professor Emeritus Arthur M. Wilson, author of the prize- winning biography, Diderot, lectured learnedly but wittily on "The Enlightenment and the Status of Women." Using Diderot's statement that women were "treated like imbecile children," he developed the thesis that Women's Lib had its beginnings in Diderot's day.

Nearly 125 members of the 50-Year Class of 1923 were among those gathered in Alumni Hall for the annual General Alumni Association luncheon at which Mr. Zimmerman, the former chairman of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees, delivered the 50-year address. He urged members of the Class of 1973 to give of themselves in life because, "he who misses the joy of giving misses the joy of living; and he who misses the joy, misses all."

Mr. Zimmerman announced that his Class had contributed a record sum of more than $200,000 as the Class of 1923 Golden Reunion Gift, surpassing the previous 50- year class mark set last year by 1922.

When Sunday arrived, the day broke with a clear, cloudless sky, a steady breeze, and a temperature that climbed into the low 80s.

Within an hour, the campus green became a sea of brightly attired people, all clamoring for their seats, the latecomers content to stand.

The seniors, marching up East Wheelock Street behind bagpipers, gave another indication of a return to the traditional by being attired in caps and gowns with very few exceptions. The line was so long that when it split ranks to permit the President, Trustees, honorary degree recipients, and faculty to march through, seniors were still spread down Wheelock Street and an opening had to be made at the southeast corner of the campus to let the procession in.

When Commencement ended with the time-honored recessional and thousands burst onto the green, fathers and mothers hugged and kissed alumnae daughters and alumni sons. For those who mingled with the happy crowd there was an unmistakable sense of family, of place, of an intangible something that had been missing for quite a few years.

One of the three husband-wife couples who got Dartmouth A.B.degrees together were Susan and Steve Stetson, the All-Ivyquarterback last fall. Both are Laconia (N.H.) High grads.

President Emeritus Dickey speaking at Class Day exercises.

Class Valedictorian Douglas A. Jabs '73.

Bagpiper scott Hidings (r), Woodstock, Vt., high schoolteacher, led the academic procession to Baker and then did aquick change to get a master's degree in liberal arts.